Just Have to Vent

I had a conversation with someone at work today, a good friend actually, a woman in her late forties, early fifties. She knows I'm a Democrat; I know she isn't. I hadn't planned to talk politics.

She told me that she'd thought of me this morning after getting some right-wing e-mail of some kind, that she knew it would anger me. She said it had a great response for liberals who complain about the Iraqi civilians we've killed.

As I've never heard a "great response" to that particular "complaint," I asked what it was.

She said, "Well, what about all the Americans who die on our streets every day?"

Umm... huh?

"I mean the Americans who die here, because of government programs."

"The Americans who are killed by government programs?" I said. I didn't know what she was talking about.

It turns out she was talking about welfare. I haven't heard someone demonize welfare in a long time, certainly since Clinton basically cancelled it, so I was unprepared a little. And very unprepared indeed for her assertion that despite all my moralizing about Iraq, the real moral crisis in this country is that of women having babies even though they're getting government handouts.

Needless to say, a debate ensued. It turns out that in addition to this, she is aggrieved by the high taxes she pays. You know, 'cause she's rich and all. So the taxes bother her, and welfare bothers her, and she wants to know Where Our Morals Are, so I asked her why all of her moral outrage was being directed at poor Americans instead of, oh, the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians. Over ten thousand of them.

She said, "What makes you think they're innocent?"

Oh my god.

So that was basically it, though I did, perhaps, at some point, say something that could have been construed, by some, possibly, as a suggestion that many of her views were shared by, umm, the KKK. She took offense at that. She thought I was calling her a bigot.

(Which I wasn't. I was merely commenting on the astounding correlation between her own views and those held by racists and stupid people.)

But what I really wanted to say was something like this: It makes me sad to hear you talk this way. It makes me sad that someone I respect as an individual and a friend, someone who is smart and funny and interesting and kind, has this deeply-rooted cynicism, these misplaced ideals, this corrupted intelligence, this amoral worldview. Some of these things you think and say, they are sick. And in a moral world, you would be shouted down for saying them, I would shout you down, right here in this office, and not be accused of being some wild-eyed radical leftist for doing it. Your ignorance has bred a myopia that has bred narrowness of the worst and unkindest sort, and none of that is in keeping with anything American or anything good.

But I didn't say any of that. I work with her, after all, and that's how that goes. I went back to my desk and sighed, not only about her but about all those who agree with her, those who lead me to suspect, on days like this, that America is just fucked.



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